Punjab in India and Pakistan

Two administrative regions belonging to INDIA and PAKISTAN lie south of disputed territories in the northern portions of both countries. These administrative regions share the name PUNJAB, previously a larger province in British India which occupied territory in what is now India and Pakistan.

Pakistan's Punjab
Punjab in Pakistan is a province where most Pakistanis live. Punjab is barely south of Pakistan's capital, Islāmābād (Islamabad), but several of the province's cities are larger in population and geographic size. With well over 7 million residents in the metropolitan area, Lahore is found in northeastern Punjab and is the capital. Other large cities with over a million residents include Faisalābad, Gujrānwāla, Multān, and Rāwalpindi. These cities and others are supported by the sustenance from the Indus River and its fertile valleys. Tributaries of the Indus which fork their way eastward across Punjab include Chenāb, Rāvi, Panjnad, and Sutlej. However, fertile valleys are juxtaposed against the non-fertile Thal Desert located to the east of the Indus and west of Chenāb River and the Thar Desert in southeast Punjab. Salty deposits and creations are found in and on the aptly-named Salt Range in northern Punjab.

India's Punjab
Punjab in India is smaller than the Punjab province of Pakistan and is an Indian state. Even though Ludhiāna has the highest population with well over 1 million residents, Chandīgarh at the eastern edge of India's Punjab is the capital. In fact, Chandīgarh is a union territory and capital belonging to Punjab as well as the Haryana State. Interestingly, Chandīgarh is at the extreme northern tip of Haryana; geographically, many other towns would serve as better capitals for Haryana than Chandīgarh! Back to talking about Punjab, other cities beside Chandīgarh and Ludhiāna include Amritsar - where a shiny Golden Temple named Harmandir Sahib is located - as well as Jalandhar and Patiāla. A few rivers flow through this state, such as Beas and Ghaggar. Like Pakistan's Punjab, the Sutlej River flows through India's Punjab. There are no large desert areas, although the Great Indian Desert is very close by to the south.